Saper and I have now completed turn 6 but I have been too busy to post. Iíll do some catching up now.

T5 North.

Below are the screen shots of the situation in the North before (but after recon) and after my moves. As you can see Saper did not make any big progress here this turn. But I was worried that he had a few of his panzer/motorized gassed up. In addition to the fully gassed and Ĺ way gassed motorized circled in blue 94 bombers flew supply to the motorized circled in red. Accordingly, I retreated back to the Luga. The bigger decision was what to do with my units lined up along the Shelon. Leave them where they are or retreat them to the river lines south of Lake Ilmen. These were some of my best units in the area, they were fortified and they there were in favorable terrain behind a river. I knew they were in danger of encirclement if I left them where they were but I figured if I didnít move them and Saper didnít attack them that was good and if he did attack them at least they could defend themselves better than my units along the Luga and it would delay the assault on the Luga for a turn or two. So as you can see I left them. Iíll let you know how that turned out.

Below are the screenshots of the action in the centre. Rather than attempting to encircle my units lined up along the Dnepr Saper chose instead to advance into the area I had largely vacated in the landbridge. You can see from the first screenshot that, thanks to a large number of airsupply missions, Saper has several panzer/motorized units in fair to excellent supply of fuel. So I gave the 2 regiments of the 14th motorized (circled in red) a bloody nose and then I ran

My worries about my position in the South were unfounded as Saper didnít even try to cross the Dnepr. Instead he contented himself with a drive towards D-Town and expanding the size of the area he controls on the west bank of the river. The most worrisome unit is, of course, the Wiking SS motorized circled in red. There was no way I could hold the entire river line so I abandoned most of it in effort to hold the southern portion of it.

Saper is very quick at returning turns and I am very busy so I have not been able to keep this AAR current. Saper has just sent me his turn 8 and so I have the choice of either playing my turn or else keeping you all informed of the progress of the war. An easy choice for me. I'll post unpdates as soon as I can. In the meantime enjoy Saper's AAR which I assume (because I am slow at returning turns) is current.

Below are the before and after pictures of the situation in the North. As you can see Saper elected to deal with my units along the Shelon and almost succeeded in isolating them. Another 4 of my best units (and 1 not so good) will soon be bagged. The good news is that it did delay his attack towards Leningrad and his panzer/motorized units are now mostly out of gas. So did I make a mistake in not retreating these units last turn or not?

My several hex retreat last turn was not enough to prevent Saper from surrounding a few more units in the Centre. The unit in Smolensk was expected, the others not so much. Though Iím not terribly surprised either.

As the Russians I like to get at least 3:2 odds on attack. My experience is that if I can get these odds and there is no reserve commitment I will win a high percentage of the time. How high Iím not sure as Iíve never kept track but I would say around 90% of the time with 1:1 and 80% even after 2:1 kicks in. Have others experienced similar results?

I did the math and calculated that I could get 3:2 odds on both the DR SS Mot. (the unit on the west side of the river) and on the Wiking SS Mot (the unit on the east bank). My attack on the DR Mot was successful, barely, but instead of retreating into the open hex to the west as expected it retreated east across the major river to stack with the Wiking Mot. Does anyone understand the retreat rules? If so could you please explain them to me. In any event this reduced my attack to a 1:1 which, as you can see below, was successful. But believe me I had some anxious moments.

Saperís panzers and motorized charged SE this turn. Note that despite the great distances travelled and my cutting of his rail lines, 2 of Saperís motorized (circled) have lots of gas due to supply airlifts

As the Russians I like to get at least 3:2 odds on attack. My experience is that if I can get these odds and there is no reserve commitment I will win a high percentage of the time. How high Iím not sure as Iíve never kept track but I would say around 90% of the time with 1:1 and 80% even after 2:1 kicks in. Have others experienced similar results?

Personaly I like 1(+2):1 against the panzers and 1(+3):1 against infantry. But before to take my decision, I do some bomb on the unit and this HQ (if Iknow it), I put the combat screen on 7 to know how many and which units I have killed, disrupted. I have very good results with this method

ORIGINAL: Harrybanana As the Russians I like to get at least 3:2 odds on attack. My experience is that if I can get these odds and there is no reserve commitment I will win a high percentage of the time. How high Iím not sure as Iíve never kept track but I would say around 90% of the time with 1:1 and 80% even after 2:1 kicks in. Have others experienced similar results?

The game favors the attacker too much.Ignoring the 1:1 rule, I'd say 90% retreats at 2:1 initial CV is pretty close to my experience as well.This is a bit much even for the Germans but for the Soviets I think it should be more like 4:1 before you see that kind of success rate.Even at 1:1 the Soviets attacks are successful probably 60 - 70% of the time. To my mind a Soviet 1:1 (after 1941) attack should be more like 10% success rate with very heavy casualties, basically only used to wear down and pin German defenses.2:1 maybe 50%, 3:1 maybe 70ish and 4:1 90ish.

Saper gassed up a couple of his motorized to 56% to 70% full and also had another motorized and one panzer at 41% to 55% full. So I retreated to the Valdai Hills and the river line to the north. At this point I was feeling pretty confident about my position in the North. Indeed it was the only place on my entire line that I was feeling comfortable. Unfortunately I made a big mistake here as I had woefully inadequate forces between the hills and the river. What can I say, it was late at night and I rushed my turn. A poor excuse but the only one Iíve got.